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[Omni]

Halo 5.

Obviously fake. Red Xs won't be there at launch

Spoiler

:lol

 

[The Antitype]

You know what else did not help things. They removed some staple weapons and added in reskinned copies of others. To me when I think of Halo for example here are the first 2 weapons that come to mind.

Assault Rifle
Plasma Rifle

The first weapon I think of enemy wise is the plasma rifle. Replaced by an awful covie copy of the AR. The Prometheon weapons sucked too because they again were just reskins with a tweak. One thing Bungie got right was that each weapon was unique and served a role for the most part. Sure they had a couple of reskins but those were unique enough that they were fun. You don't have that in Halo 4. Not one bit. Every enemy weapon just feels so bland and unoriginal except the Needler and plasma pistol which thankfully survived.

While I agree that Halo 4 had too many weapons that overlapped purpose in the sandbox (and hell, some weapons that served the exact same purpose as another), I'm not really sure what was lost practically in the move from the Plasma Rifle to the Storm Rifle.

Aesthetically I agree, the Plasma Rifle has a more iconic silhouette, but as far as I remember they operated exactly the same. The Plasma Rifle had a 'stun' effect all the way back in Halo: CE but that was ditched by Halo 2.

 

[TacticalFox88]

I think what really pissed me off more was how they handled the story and mythos and shitted on what Bungie clearly wanted to establish post-war.

WHY THE FUCK WOULD YOU LET KAREN TRAVISS WRITE FOR THE HALO LORE!?

Halsey bashing (even though the woman was completely justified in nearly every action she did).
Making the UNSC look like complete and total assholes.

Shitting on the alliance the Sanghelli had with the Humans. (Really, 343? These same elites are the sole reason, not including the Chief, that the UNSC even still exists and they just turn on them on a dime? Really, now? I'm not saying they should get together and sing Kumbaya, but jesus christ)

Whoever came up with the new designs for the Elites needs to be fired. A mix of 3 and Reach would've been PERFECT. But nope, they redesign them to look like complete and total ass.

Spartan IVs don't know how to shut the fuck up and act like Spartans. Palmer is a terrible Commander. What was the point of adding IVs when they're just glorified ODSTs and not even half as cool?

Chief sees the largest UNSC warship ever created and his response is "Track its descent".
Um...what?

The Master fucking Chief is alive and no one seems to give a shit except maybe Lasky.

The Didact as cool as he was, had a lot of wasted potential. How the hell do you have a great villain from the novels and then just butcher him as a throwaway villain? I still think he's underrated, don't get me wrong, but goddamn he could've been even better!

 

[hwalker84]

Fantastic game but the problem with Halo multiplayer is that it doesn't have nearly enough maps to start with. I find myself extremely tired of the maps rather quickly. Does anyone remember the days when the next game would have all the maps from the previous plus more?

The other thing is DLC is implemented horribly. Not enough people purchase it so you're forced into the DLC only playlists. Maybe it's time for some sort of Mass Effect 3 style microtransactions with the maps being free?

 

[Voltron64]

The warthog sounded like a lawn mower, that's what happened.

 

[Demon Ice]

Great OP. Very informative, and 100% correct.

Halo 4 lasted a whole two entire months in the Top 3 of the Xbox Live activity chart. Halo 3 didn't fall out of the Top 3 until Halo Reach released - 3 years after it's release. Halo Reach didn't fall out of the Top 3 until 343's title update for the game after they took over the game, 12 months after release.

All that needs to be said.

Halo 4 is a soulless shadow of what it could have been. 343i was more concerned about making a game as pretty as possible on the 360 (with mixed results at best), that they compromised everything it meant to be Halo. Goodbye sandbox, hello linear Call of Duty in space campaign (that ends on a goddamn QTE) and poorly balanced, perk-ridden multiplayer.

This makes it extraordinarily easy for me to not waste my money on an XB1. I could not be less interested in what Halo 5 has to offer.

 

[SpartanN92]

I remain optimistic that mistakes have been noted and Halo 5 will be adjusted accordingly.

 

[Takuan]

I'm not hugely into Halo, but that's an interesting OP. Seems like it's been usurped by CoD, and with more competition in BF and Titanfall, it's only going to get harder unless they really embrace the community.

 

[Cohiba]

The biggest blow for me was the removal of firefight. I spent so much time on that in ODST and Reach. It was the best new feature.

and I wanted to give Spartan Ops a chance but it got so repetitive so fast. And wasn't there supposed to be more seasons? It looks like they abandoned that project.

 

[ElRenoRaven]

Interesting hearing all the dislike for the single-player in Halo 4. As much as I reviled the multiplayer, I really liked the single-player (and Spartan Ops).

I mean, obviously it was beautiful. But I also thought the whole Chief/Cortana dynamic served as a strong narrative spine and gave the story a lot more 'heart' than it's had in a long while. The new enemies added some interesting new elements into the combat, forcing new habits of enemy prioritization and forcing you to account for new attack patterns.

Honestly, the only complaints I have with it are really minor:

- Would have liked to see more wide open levels a la Halo: CE or Halo 3
- Would have liked to see more free-form combat sequences that included vehicles and tons of allies (a la Scarab battle in Halo 3)
- Would have liked to see more of the physicality, environment interaction we saw in the first level throughout the rest of the game
- Wish the new enemies weren't such bullet sponges, and I fucking hate the Knights invincible teleport animations


Oh and one major complaint:

WHAT THE FUCK happened to the Elite AI in Halo 4? Reach finally back to being the smart, scary motherfuckers they were in Halo CE, and now in Halo 4 they barely dodge, weave, flank or anything... the just attack head on and take your head-shots.

...still, I would rank the single-player campaign as tied for the second best in the series with Reach.

Oh the AI. Oh god the AI is beyond pathetic. I'd be ashamed to have followed Bungie's AI with whatever the hell that was in 4. Literally you could use the long range weapons and ping on them and they'd stand there and do nothing. They'd regularly fly banshees, etc into walls and stick there. They'd spend time just jumping back and forth back and forth. They even removed the need for them to path because they all could magically jump everywhere. I'd regularly see them not bother to walk up stairs because they could just hop up. The AI without a doubt was one of the worst things about the campaign. Then on Legendary they weren't fun because they didn't have to use tactics. They could sit there and take a beating from you because they were just bullet sponges. This resulted of course in you having no ammo because all the weapons scattered about disappeared in seconds.

Here are my problems with Halo 4's campaign. It was basically the only thing about Halo 4 that I was still hyped about and because of that it was probably even more disappointing than the multiplayer.


-The scale of encounters is toned down.
Halo Reach already had smaller encounters than Halo 3, but Halo 4 doesn't do anything to fix that either. Battles like the ones towards the end of the The Ark or the double Scarab fight during The Covenant are nowhere to be seen in Halo 4. While playing the level with the Mammoth I was waiting for a battle against a big army, but all we got was a couple of Wraiths and a Ghost here and there at most. In total the level had quite a few vehicles, but that's only because you fought wave after wave of one Wraith and two Ghosts. I'm not sure why Scarabs didn't make it into Reach and Halo 4. Sure, after a couple of times they became easy to take down, but I feel like if they were expanded upon some great things could've come out of it.

-It's more linear than any other Halo.
This related to my previous point. Similarly, ever since Halo 3 (ODST) there's been a worrisome trend. The levels are getting more and more linear and there are less options to mix things up. Halo 1 was probably the most open of any of the Halo games. Levels like The Silent Cartographer and Halo were great examples of to gives people the option to take different approaches to certain encounters. Halo 3 also did a great job at this. While there aren't any levels quite as open as the ones I just mentioned, the levels were still designed with flexibility in mind. Halo 4 hardly had any of this. The most open level was the one with the Pelican, but in the end you didn't really do anything while flying it. So essentially the level was just three (?) linear encounters in one. Being able to mix things up was what made Halo so excellent for replayability which is something Halo 4 sorely misses, partly because of this.

-Promethean enemies are badly designed.
343 had the opportunity to do something Bungie never did: create completely new enemy types that would freshen up the campaign after 10 years of Elites, Grunts and Jackals. The result, to me, was quite disappointing. Initially I was pretty excited about the idea of the Promethean working closely together, but after playing it felt really lacking. The only unit that actually interact with his allies was the Watcher. It shielded Knights and even revived them after they died. Knights and Robodogs didn't really acknowledge their allies at all. This resulted in the Watcher being a priority target every single time there was a fight against Prometheans. Why bother killing knights first if the Watcher can revive them anyway? It made the fights less flexible as a result, especially compared to fights against the Covenant.

A bigger issue I had with the Promethean was how they felt like bullet sponges much more than the Covenant ever did. (Halo 2 Brutes were pretty bad, but even those died with a couple of headshots) Where with the Covenant you can quickly drains shields with Plasma weaponry there was no such thing with the Prometheans. Yes, you could drain their shields with Plasma weapons, but during most encounters with them there weren't any Covenant around to drop Plasma weapons. So you ended up mostly using either Human or Promethean weapons, both of which weren't effective at range. The Suppressorwas decent, but on higher difficulty levels getting up close with Knights is not recommended. Combine the lack of Plasma weaponry with the fact that the shields of the Knights are barely visible and recharge incredibly quickly and you've got a frustrating enemy. That's without even taking into account the teleporting and their screwed up head hitboxes.

-The story is a mess
The stories in Halo games were never that great to being with, but until Halo 4 there were at least fairly contained. Reach already made it a bit muddy by adding Halsey without even explaining who she is, but Halo 4 truly is a mess. If you hadn't read the books you'd have no idea who you're fighting or why have even hates humanity to begin with. The terminals to decent job at explaining some of this stuff, but they're not even viewable in the game itself. You have to go to Youtube or the Waypoint app to watch them. Something which I can safely assume rarely anybody does midgame. Even if you could watch them as soon as you unlocked a terminal it wouldn't have be great, because a lot of people miss out of them this way. They should've been woven into the gameplay and cutscenes in the game itself to work.

-It's too 'game-y'
Keep in mind, this is a relatively small complaint. It's about how 343's Halo feels less natural than those of Bungie. Quick Time Events, the same button press animation a million times, a predator strike section, calling in 'airstrikes' with the target designator, those short ingame cutscenes, that kinda stuff. Stuff like that never made it into Bungie Halo games for good reason. Halo was about dropping you into and environment and letting you do whatever you want. Those things I mentioned just now take you out of it and make it less... sandbox-y if that makes sense. They're unnecessary small things that when added up annoy me quite a bit. Another example of the difference between 343 and Bungie is the comparison between the The Maw Hog run and the Halo 4 Ghost run. You can see enemy troops run away during both these sequences, but there's a difference between how they're handled in both. In Halo 1 you can see Covenant fighting Flood, you can see squads made out of Elites and Grunts running toward safety. It all feels very natural and doesn't feel out of place. During the Halo 4 Ghost run you see nearly a hundred Grunts all running in a straight line doing the exact same animation. They look like they're placed there to give the player some cheap free kills. It feels fake. Again, these aren't major issues, but it does make me appreciate Bungie.

You hit a lot of the problems on the head. I couldn't agree more.

 

[Heretic]

Really hoping Halo 5 turns the series around. Love this franchise. 10 years.

 

[newshinycd]

I remain optimistic that mistakes have been noted and Halo 5 will be adjusted accordingly.

Too fucking late for me. 343i showed me that they suck at managing a game. I've already written off Halo 5.

If I do decide to buy Halo 5, it definitely won't be at launch. I'll wait a couple of months to see how the community has reacted and then decide. My guess is they'll shoot themselves in the foot again.

 

[monome]

The Didact as cool as he was, had a lot of wasted potential. How the hell do you have a great villain from the novels and then just butcher him as a throwaway villain? I still think he's underrated, don't get me wrong, but goddamn he could've been even better!

don't...

it hurts.

 

[No_Style]

Wonderful analysis. I love stuff like this.

I didn't play much of the MP though (lack of Gold). However, I enjoyed the campaign at the time for what it was. I loved the feeling of being Master Chief more than any other Halo game.

 

[2San]

-The story is a mess
The stories in Halo games were never that great to being with, but until Halo 4 there were at least fairly contained. Reach already made it a bit muddy by adding Halsey without even explaining who she is, but Halo 4 truly is a mess. If you hadn't read the books you'd have no idea who you're fighting or why have even hates humanity to begin with. The terminals to decent job at explaining some of this stuff, but they're not even viewable in the game itself. You have to go to Youtube or the Waypoint app to watch them. Something which I can safely assume rarely anybody does midgame. Even if you could watch them as soon as you unlocked a terminal it wouldn't have be great, because a lot of people miss out of them this way. They should've been woven into the gameplay and cutscenes in the game itself to work.

Yeah how the terminals was handled will stand out as one of the most baffling and dumbest design decisions in a big franchise.

 

[chemicals]

I love Halo 4, so it's hard for me to admit this... but GREAT POST OP!

I think we can all agree that the lesson to be learned here is this: you can't replace talent with finances. Bungie created Halo and they did it best.. all the money in the world can't put 343 on the same level.

 

[JJD]

Halo, like most Sony franchises that are not called Gran Turismo is on it's way to irrelevancy since Bungie left.

If the Xbone really perform as bad (sales wise) as some people are suggesting that it will, no one will care about Halo in 2 or 3 years. MS is smart trying to push Halo 5 to 2014 while some casuals are still interested in the franchise.

Look at what happened to Socom. It was a big IP on the PS2 and no one cares about it now.

 

[cmgfender]

Halo 4 got me back into Halo, but i hadnt really touched it since 2.

I can see why people didnt like a lot of it though, I hope for big things from halo 5

 

[fantomena]

For me, it did go boring pretty fast.

 

[TheClimaxan]

Halo 4 had its moments with me, but it never fully captured the Halo magic.

I haven't lost sight that this was 343's first crack at a full game though. I hope they have learned from the missteps and take all of the community feedback and online data to heart. I want to be able to look back on Halo 4 one day and appreciate it as a necessary growing pain, not the death knell of my favorite franchise.

 

[The Antitype]

I think what really pissed me off more was how they handled the story and mythos and shitted on what Bungie clearly wanted to establish post-war.

WHY THE FUCK WOULD YOU LET KAREN TRAVISS WRITE FOR THE HALO LORE!?

Halsey bashing (even though the woman was completely justified in nearly every action she did).
Making the UNSC look like complete and total assholes.

Shitting on the alliance the Sanghelli had with the Humans. (Really, 343? These same elites are the sole reason, not including the Chief, that the UNSC even still exists and they just turn on them on a dime? Really, now? I'm not saying they should get together and sing Kumbaya, but jesus christ)

Whoever came up with the new designs for the Elites needs to be fired. A mix of 3 and Reach would've been PERFECT. But nope, they redesign them to look like complete and total ass.

Spartan IVs don't know how to shut the fuck up and act like Spartans. Palmer is a terrible Commander. What was the point of adding IVs when they're just glorified ODSTs and not even half as cool?

Chief sees the largest UNSC warship ever created and his response is "Track its descent".
Um...what?

The Master fucking Chief is alive and no one seems to give a shit except maybe Lasky.

The Didact as cool as he was, had a lot of wasted potential. How the hell do you have a great villain from the novels and then just butcher him as a throwaway villain? I still think he's underrated, don't get me wrong, but goddamn he could've been even better!

Halsey was always a narcissistic sociopath who basically tortured children to create her perfect weapons. Had the Spartan program been designed to fight off an invasion from the onset then you could maybe make a 'desperate times call for desperate measures' argument. But they weren't, it was originally designed as a means for the government to exert control over their own people with a damn near unbeatable military force, and Halsey's major motivation was playing god. She wanted to improve humanity just to prove that she could, and who cares about who or how many got hurt or died in the process, the same narcissism led her to make dangerous and damaging decisions throughout the Spartan Ops story.

As for the UNSC, they were always pretty assholish, including in the novels. This isn't some grand, benevolent organization. They're a government and a military, and they're motivated by the same forces and temptations that all governments and military are: Power and fear. If anything, it was the relatively simple 'white-hats' presentation of the UNSC in Halo 1 through Halo 3 that was problematic. Halo 4 was the first of the games to actually show more of the nuance to the UNSC.

As for the Convenant in the game... what would have them do? A Covenant squadron attacked a UNSC vessel and the inhabitant on board. It's not like the UNSC took it as an act of war and is now going planet to planet hunting them down, they simply fought back against a force that had shown hostility. I would have liked the game to explain WHY that squadron attacked the ship and Master Chief though, beyond a throw-away line from Cortana about maybe they're radicals or not in contact with the rest of the Convenant fleet back near Earth.

"Spartan IVs don't know how to shut the fuck up and act like Spartans." - Yes, what Halo definitely needs is more stoic, nearly-silent protagonists and secondary characters. Can't get enough of that. The point of Spartan IVs is that they are cheaper to produce than the Spartan 3s and require less intensive genetic re-engineering and physical enhancement. They're SUPPOSED to be a mid-step between the ODSTs and Master Chief. More capable than human soldiers, not quite as ungodly as the Spartan IIIs, and nowhere near as emotional detached/broken because they haven't been subjected to such nightmarish 'training'.

 

[metzger203]

That sinking feeling when you realize

Spoiler

you will never play a major clanmatch on Headlong ever again...

 

[shandy706]

I just started playing Halo 4's.....single player.

I don't really care for multiplayer in anything, but I'm really enjoying the campaign. For $9.99, no complaints at all. I look forward to the X1 Halo.

 

[Akai__]

Here are my problems with Halo 4's campaign. It was basically the only thing about Halo 4 that I was still hyped about and because of that it was probably even more disappointing than the multiplayer.


-The scale of encounters is toned down.
Halo Reach already had smaller encounters than Halo 3, but Halo 4 doesn't do anything to fix that either. Battles like the ones towards the end of the The Ark or the double Scarab fight during The Covenant are nowhere to be seen in Halo 4. While playing the level with the Mammoth I was waiting for a battle against a big army, but all we got was a couple of Wraiths and a Ghost here and there at most. In total the level had quite a few vehicles, but that's only because you fought wave after wave of one Wraith and two Ghosts. I'm not sure why Scarabs didn't make it into Reach and Halo 4. Sure, after a couple of times they became easy to take down, but I feel like if they were expanded upon some great things could've come out of it.

-It's more linear than any other Halo.
This related to my previous point. Similarly, ever since Reach there's been a worrisome trend. The levels are getting more and more linear and there are less options to mix things up. Halo 1 was probably the most open of any of the Halo games. Levels like The Silent Cartographer and Halo were great examples of to gives people the option to take different approaches to certain encounters. Halo 3 also did a great job at this. While there aren't any levels quite as open as the ones I just mentioned, the levels were still designed with flexibility in mind. Halo 4 hardly had any of this. The most open level was the one with the Pelican, but in the end you didn't really do anything while flying it. So essentially the level was just three (?) linear encounters in one. Being able to mix things up was what made Halo so excellent for replayability which is something Halo 4 sorely misses, partly because of this.

-Promethean enemies are badly designed.
343 had the opportunity to do something Bungie never did: create completely new enemy types that would freshen up the campaign after 10 years of Elites, Grunts and Jackals. The result, to me, was quite disappointing. Initially I was pretty excited about the idea of the Promethean working closely together, but after playing the game it felt really lacking. The only unit that actually interact with his allies was the Watcher. It shielded Knights and even revived them after they died. Knights and Robodogs didn't really acknowledge their allies at all. This resulted in the Watcher being a priority target every single time there was a fight against Prometheans. Why bother killing knights first if the Watcher can revive them anyway? It made the fights less flexible as a result, especially compared to fights against the Covenant.

A bigger issue I had with the Promethean was how they felt like bullet sponges much more than the Covenant ever did. (Halo 2 Brutes were pretty bad, but even those died with a couple of headshots) Where with the Covenant you can quickly drains shields with Plasma weaponry there was no such thing with the Prometheans. Yes, you could drain their shields with Plasma weapons, but during most encounters with them there weren't any Covenant around to drop Plasma weapons. So you ended up mostly using either Human or Promethean weapons, both of which weren't effective at range. The Suppressor was decent, but on higher difficulty levels getting up close with Knights is not recommended. Combine the lack of Plasma weaponry with the fact that the shields of the Knights are barely visible and recharge incredibly quickly and you've got a frustrating enemy. That's without even taking into account the teleporting and their screwed up head hitboxes.

-The story is a mess
The stories in Halo games were never that great to being with, but until Halo 4 there were at least fairly contained. Reach already made it a bit muddy by adding Halsey without even explaining who she is, but Halo 4 truly is a mess. If you hadn't read the books you'd have no idea who you're fighting or why have even hates humanity to begin with. The terminals do a decent job at explaining some of this stuff, but they're not even viewable in the game itself. You have to go to Youtube or the Waypoint app to watch them. Something which I can safely assume rarely anybody does midgame. Even if you could watch them as soon as you unlocked a terminal it wouldn't have be great, because a lot of people miss out of them this way. They should've been woven into the gameplay and cutscenes in the game itself to work.

-It's too 'game-y'
Keep in mind, this is a relatively small complaint. It's about how 343's Halo feels less natural than those of Bungie. Quick Time Events, the same button press animation a million times, a predator strike section, calling in 'airstrikes' with the target designator, those short ingame cutscenes, that kinda stuff. Stuff like that never made it into Bungie Halo games for good reason. Halo was about dropping you into and environment and letting you do whatever you want. Those things I mentioned just now take you out of it and make it less... sandbox-y if that makes sense. They're unnecessary small things that when added up annoy me quite a bit. Another example of the difference between 343 and Bungie is the comparison between the The Maw Hog run and the Halo 4 Ghost run. You can see enemy troops run away during both these sequences, but there's a difference between how they're handled in both. In Halo 1 you can see Covenant fighting Flood, you can see squads made out of Elites and Grunts running toward safety. It all feels very natural and doesn't feel out of place. During the Halo 4 Ghost run you see nearly a hundred Grunts all running in a straight line doing the exact same animation. They look like they're placed there to give the player some cheap free kills. It feels fake. Again, these aren't major issues, but it does make me appreciate Bungie.

Beautiful post. I agree with everything.

 

[Pikawil]

hello linear Call of Duty in space campaign

 

[daman824]

Halo, like most Sony franchises that are not called Gran Turismo is on it's way to irrelevancy since Bungie left.

If the Xbone really perform as bad (sales wise) as some people are suggesting that it will, no one will care about Halo in 2 or 3 years. MS is smart trying to push Halo 5 to 2014 while some casuals are still interested in the franchise.

Look at what happened to Socom. It was a big IP on the PS2 and no one cares about it now.

Halo is on a whole different level compared to socom. People often seem too ready to forget sales charts. Halo isn't going anywhere for a while.

 

[The English Conquistador]

An amazing game is what happened.

Yup.

 

[ToyMachine228]

Honestly, I thought Halo 4 was the best in the series since Halo: CE. While I didn't play it as much as Halo 2 or Halo 3, I think that's mostly due to the fact that I'm much older and my life has changed. I don't play games as much in general. But I still got a ton of enjoyment from Halo 4 and felt "it" during the campaign. I still have faith in 343 to deliver more Halo goodness with H5.

 

[Pollux]

god damn, you're right OP. I used to love Halo - it was basically the only multiplayer game I played on Xbox. Now I've completely switched over to Battlefield 4 and it blows Halo 4 out of the water.

 

[HigherLevel]

Everything about Halo 4 has been poor since day one. 343 announced it at E3 2011 with no info and went months and months with absolutely no info. It wasn't until March until we got a short video. Then there was the whole gameinformer cover fiasco where everyone complained, Frankie said things weren't like they were described, and then the game released and everything were like they were described.

The art design for everything was terrible. Covenant, from Elites to Grunts did not look the same. Promethean Knights and other enemies that looked like enemies from Metroid Prime. Marines that didn't even look soldiers, Spartans with a weird anime influence. Forerunner levels that were too busy compared to the simple designs of previous Halo games. This is one of the most apparent flaws with Halo 4 because it's what you see, and I really don't like these changes.

As so many people have already said, all the CoD influences in the gameplay ruined. Perks, flinch, weapon drops, custom loadouts, instant respawn, none of that belongs in Halo. Then there is the terrible map selection and watered-down objective gametypes.

Lastly there is the lack of features, features that don't work properly or didn't for a while, and the awful UI.

343 really messed up with Halo 4. I'm hoping they can turn it around, but I'm pretty doubtful right now. I'd love to be proved wrong though.

 

[Conor 419]

"Foes and false friends are all around me, Lord Davos. They infest my city like roaches, and at night I feel them crawling over me.” The fat man’s fingers coiled into a fist, and all his chins trembled. "Halo came to the Twins a guest. He ate Lord Frankie's bread and salt, and hung his sword upon the wall to feast with his friends. And they murdered him. Murdered, I say, and may 343i choke upon their fables. I drink with Jessica, jape with Bonnie, promise Kiki the hand of my own beloved granddson…but never think that means I have forgotten. The fans remember, Lord Davos. The fans remember, and the mummers farce is almost done, my son is home "

Microsoft and 343i

What happened? Everything happened, Microsoft, the core fanbase, 343i, everything.

Microsoft having greater control over the series was always going to be a problem, Microsoft are incompetent and have mishandled and greatly damaged every single entertainment IP they've ever been responsible for. Their management, perhaps indisputably, are fucking stupid; not one of them challenged

- Releasing ODST at full price vs Modern Warfare 2
- Having Halo: Reach try and emulate CoD
- Making an independant canon that doesn't at all link to the series
- The low standards introduced by Halo: Spartan Assault
- The absolute massacre of the canon we saw in Halo 4

343i also proved to be a disaster. Frank O' Connor goaded the community relentlessly, bragging that their own vision was superior to that of the Halo fans that had lived and breathed since that beautiful day in 2001. Little care was put into Halo 4 at all

- They lazily reintroduced the Covenant as foes, essentially retconning the entire Halo trilogy in the opening 10 minutes of the game
- They have EVEN retconned the new trilogy, admitting they had absolutely no long term plans with the story of Halo 4, and as a result have cancelled Halo 5 and 6.
- They answered none of the questions the old trilogy left behind, and made no attempt to do so. The Master Chief; the greatest hero in humanity's history, was discovered to be alive.

"I THOUGHT YOU'D BE TALLER, LOL"

- The new faction were if anything, an afterthought, and were introduced unsuccessfully into the series.
- They slaughtered the canon. The ODST's were removed, old characters were nowhere to be seen. New Spartan's were introduced, they were the worst. The specialness of the Spartan programme was finally laid to rest, and the new Spartan's were your average bro figures, what was even worse was that they were not even questioned by the Master Chief. You want to make the Chief a human character? WHY NOT FUCKING HAVE HIM VOCALISE SOME THOUGHTS ABOUT A NEW PROGRAMME BEING INTRODUCED, WHICH WAS THE BASIS OF HIS ENTIRE EXISTENCE, AS OPPOSED TO SOME SHITTY FUCKING LOVE STORY WITH AN OVER SEXUALISED BLUE BLOB, YOU FUCKING CUNTS.

It was a great tragedy what the two companies did to Halo and look how the fanbase have suffered for it. Not that the fanbase are entirely blameless...

The fanbase

NeoGAF was a wonderful opportunity. Members of 343i were active on this forum, and we had a large community to vocalise our ideas to them. unfortunately however, they were a community and not a fanbase. All of the Halo fans died at the Red Wedding with the Chief, me included. There are perhaps three real Halo fans left on this forum, the rest are a fucking joke. People would refuse to see the importance of custom game browsing and dedicated servers for the future of this IP, they ridiculed the thought that Microsoft's most important IP should be feature competitive with CoD, Battlefield and the Valve FPS's. Instead they only cared about trivial issues, such as the frame rate, camopaign scoring, whether theatre should be co-operative. They didn't even seem to care that Forge had been outsourced, and Halo 4 was in no condition ready to launch.

I valiantly called out 343i, but was shouted down by the greater community. See below an actual quote from a Halo Gaf member

Look at us Frankie! We're both good, loyal (45 year old) fans who think everything that happens to the series is great! Halo:ODST didn't even have competitive multiplayer and it launched full price against the one of the most wildly anticipated sequels of all time, but don't worry Frankie, only the yucky Halo haters are suggesting that this was a bad idea! Who cares if Halo:ODST sold significantly worse than Halo 3? Sales mean nothing for the growth of a series Frankie! We'll make up the 7 million copies ourselves Frankie, we swear! On Halo Frankie! HALO! Because we love it so much Frankie! Love it so much that we totally agree that it's a stupid idea to keep the series competitive with other games in the genre Frankie! Who cares if Battlefield 3, TF2 on PC or Black Op's II in general provides a far better experience for $60 less per year Frankie! Our beloved Halo doesn't need any of those features, you're totally right Frankie, campaign scoring is much more of a priority for the series!

Whatever you say Frankie! Please love us Frankie!

Our wives don't.

And so as you can see, the Halo fanbase will never recover, it will never again be what it was.

Afterword

With Destiny soon to be released, the real Halo fans, who now live on a peaceful haven on a solitary asteroid somewhere in the stars, will once again be looking to Bungie to be their saviours, we will pray for them and hope their souls are brought to rest. As for Microsoft? They should have done the noble thing and sold the IP to Nintendo or Rockstar, of course they didn't however and this whole disaster has been completely out of control.

Goodbye Halo, we will never forget you.

 

[Bizazedo]

"Spartan IVs don't know how to shut the fuck up and act like Spartans." - Yes, what Halo definitely needs is more stoic, nearly-silent protagonists and secondary characters. Can't get enough of that. The point of Spartan IVs is that they are cheaper to produce than the Spartan 3s and require less intensive genetic re-engineering and physical enhancement. They're SUPPOSED to be a mid-step between the ODSTs and Master Chief. More capable than human soldiers, not quite as ungodly as the Spartan IIIs, and nowhere near as emotional detached/broken because they haven't been subjected to such nightmarish 'training'.

I partially agree, but the issue is that they were so smug I was waiting for a payoff. Master Chief / Spartan II's needed to be shown to be far more badass than the IV's. And I don't recall that really.

Pile onto this the fact that Master Chief, despite being mostly quiet, Jorge from Reach, and even the rest of the squad from Reach, were just more likeable than the IV's.

Nuance also plays a role. Halsey obviously didn't like the III's. It's shown in novels and even the brief encounter in Reach. Yet she shows some respect (and it's reciprocated) with the only II on the squad. That and it's obvious the only II is the most able of the entire squad.

It's the little things like that that were missing.

 

[ironcreed]

I had a great time with it last year. I just can't play multiplayer shooters for months on end. I get burned out too quickly.

 

[Phatcorns]

One of the KEY components of Halo is weapon control. When you take that out of the game, what is there left? A bad COD clone.

 

[sinnergy]

Just finished SP today, life got in between, it was a awesome ride. Halo is in good hands.

MP was okay, but U never was into Halo mp.

 

[GulAtiCa]

Halo 4 was kinda a big disappointment to me for the single player. I loved all the Halo games before it, but this one just lacked it's own charm. The ending was kinda punch to the gut as well..

 

[Calm Killer]

They made Halo of Duty to catch the CoD crowd, but the CoD crowd went back to CoD and the Halo fanbase was alienated, thus losing everyone in the process.

This. Exactly. Halo 4 is not Halo. It has a long way to go. Backward....

 

[Narpas Sword0]

That OP seems to be packed with a bunch of forum politics that 90% of the people who left the game in the last year had no knowledge of.

 

[wetflame]

The Halo series is something I don't really have much more than a passing interest in at all, and I don't play online shooters but this OP was really interesting to read due to the depth and analysis provided. Great work!

 

[The Antitype]

Foes and false friends are all around me, Lord Davos. They infest my city like roaches, and at night I feel them crawling over me.” The fat man’s fingers coiled into a fist, and all his chins trembled. "Halo came to the Twins a guest. He ate Lord Frankie's bread and salt, and hung his sword upon the wall to feast with his friends. And they murdered him. Murdered, I say, and may 343i choke upon their fables. I drink with Jessica jape with Bonnie, promise Kiki the hand of my own beloved granddson…but never think that means I have forgotten. The fans remember, Lord Davos. The fans remember, and the mummers farce is almost done, my son is home

Microsoft and 343i

What happened? Everything happened, Microsoft, the core fanbase, 343i, everything.

Microsoft having greater control over the series was always going to be a problem, Microsoft are incompetent and have mishandled and greatly damaged every single entertainment IP they've ever been responsible for. Their management, perhaps indisputably, are fucking stupid; not one of them challenged

- Releasing ODST at full price vs Modern Warfare 2
- Having Halo: Reach try and emulate CoD
- Making an independant canon that doesn't at all link to the series
- The low standards introduced by Halo: Spartan Assault
- The absolute massacre of the canon we saw in Halo 4

....

Uh....what?

Nothing in Reach had anything resembling COD. No EXP system, no weapon unlocks, there were only a few modes with options for starting loadouts, all of which were locked not customizable.

Honestly, your entire post was kind of incoherent. Cancelled Halo 5 and Halo 6? WTF are you smoking?

 

[Shig]

I feel like launching right alongside Call of Duty is the biggest X-factor. Halo's been in decline against COD for a while now, but the September releases of previous games gave them a chance to get their hooks into people, to get used to the things that had changed and to gradually work through their hang-ups with them... For the game to become a comfort food they were likely to come back to, after they got their annual COD binge out of their system. Halo 4 didn't have that acclimation period; It was Halo one week, COD the next. People weren't afforded enough time to get used to and develop any attachment to H4's changes, so when confronted with a game that was wholly familiar from the get-go, they didn't return.

 

[HigherLevel]

Uh....what?

Nothing in Reach had anything resembling COD. No EXP system, no weapon unlocks, there were only a few modes with options for starting loadouts, all of which were locked not customizable.

Think about who you're quoting.

 

[Cassius]

Hopefully they've learned some lessons and apply the experience to Halo 5.


Or not.

 

[Tunavi]

all aboard the destiny train

 

[Silly.Mikey]

It is a bad game nobody wants to play. That is what happened.

Its not a bad game. The Halo community is just impossible to please with their rediculous expectations.

I forsee a posibility of Halo going the UT and Quake route tbh. The community is against change so much that it will just keep playing the same and die with that community. Just like those games.

 

[Hindle]

The hyperbole is amusing in this thread. Halo has had one game that's received mixed reaction and the series is doomed. The franchise will continue to sell millions regardless of quality as the series gains new fans just as old fans leave.

 

[Conor 419]

Uh....what?

Nothing in Reach had anything resembling COD. No EXP system, no weapon unlocks, there were only a few modes with options for starting loadouts, all of which were locked not customizable.

Honestly, your entire post was kind of incoherent. Cancelled Halo 5 and Halo 6? WTF are you smoking?

The new trilogy is no longer a trilogy, which shows they hadn't even planned the long term story properly in the first place, and it fucking shows.

 

[Tayaya]

You know, seeing this thread reminded me that not only did I never play a single round of co-op or multiplayer in Halo 4, but I never even finished the campaign.

The game was pretty, but to say it failed to grab me is grossly understating how hard it was for me to get interested in the game. The gameplay was good enough.... I mean it still felt like Halo, but I didn't care much for the story and I was getting really tired of nearly every mission having a "big, epic firefight" moment. I like those as much as the next guy, but in Halo 4 they seemed less meaningful because they were so frequent.

I should go back and finish the campaign at least, I guess.

 

[TheVoidDragon]

"Spartan IVs don't know how to shut the fuck up and act like Spartans." - Yes, what Halo definitely needs is more stoic, nearly-silent protagonists and secondary characters. Can't get enough of that. The point of Spartan IVs is that they are cheaper to produce than the Spartan 3s and require less intensive genetic re-engineering and physical enhancement. They're SUPPOSED to be a mid-step between the ODSTs and Master Chief. More capable than human soldiers, not quite as ungodly as the Spartan IIIs, and nowhere near as emotional detached/broken because they haven't been subjected to such nightmarish 'training'.

I don't have a problem with them having a bit more personality and feeling more human, it's that they don't act even slightly like you'd expect someone who is meant to be one of the UNSC's best would be. As an example, one of them thinks it's a good idea to stand out in the open while they are getting shot at during one of the Spartan Ops cutscenes.

 

[Tunavi]

The hyperbole is amusing in this thread. Halo has had one game that's received mixed reaction and the series is doomed. The franchise will continue to sell millions regardless of quality as the series gains new fans just as old fans leave.

Because it's all about how much money the game makes to us.